Update: Photon Arts and Photon Blasts

[UnLucky]

Alternate Reality Game?

Sega: These filthy hackers are stealing our intellectual property! Stop it! Stop doing that! These are our closely guarded secrets you are violating with your vicious depravity! Don't make me come over there... I mean it guys. Really. Stop.

Valve: It seems people looked at the files we directly gave them and are now discussing our products as well as all of the cool new features and changes that we have, or could have, implemented. It's free press, advertisement, and hype. Plus we can get their valuable feedback and suggestions before we actually release anything, saving time, resources, and public image if anything needed to be changed.

[gigawuts]

That's exactly it, yes. They intentionally put things into the client data that don't actually serve a purpose. At several points in time they accidentally released something they didn't want anyone to see, like the TOBOR ("Robot" spelled backwards - meant for an early phase of the tutorial but was dropped for ordinary looking classes).

They released the TOBOR texture bya ccident and players went haywire trying to figure out its secrets. They eventually picked this up and ran with it. Hell, maybe the tutorial thing was just a coverup and it was indeed meant for the robot update. Example of how to do this shit right:

Spoiler!

They would also regularly put files (or even just references to unincluded files) in updates, such as this: http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=2682653
This gave players the information and hints to hype up something. This, plus they knew the game had an AI system that was actively being improved over time, plus a whole slew of other hints like references to robot variants of sound files for multiple classes and bomb sounds (I think "bombtank" was one of them, but I could be wrong) led to a lot of conclusions - one of the popular ones being very similar to what did actually release. Eventually it culminated in this update:

Spoiler!

Even that trailer is loaded with subtle hints and tips to other things, plus lots of references.

Valve uses all of this to their advantage. It's free, easy publicity. All you've got to do is whisper into players' ears and make sure you never give all the information. Players love that ARG shit. Meanwhile over at Sega the bunch of amateurs running the show have decided that player interest should be suppressed and controlled.

[Rien]

Ride Slasher is actually quite good at that in crowds.

But if you mean for single-target, yeah, shit's annoying to get rolling.

Can I have a demonstration of Ride Slasher on crowds?

The way I see it, it's not even a viable option compared to spamming Sonic Arrow, unless it's a Ga/Guwonda.

[gigawuts]

Oh man ride slasher is god tier in bunched up crowds, for building gear and for just general killing. Try it on weak bulleted falz hands, oh god.

[ArcaneTechs]

anyone have an updated link or vids for the new photon arts?

[supersonix9]

at least we can be surprised by the new PAs I guess lol

[ShinMaruku]

watch the knuckle PA end up being really good.




Assault Buster? ...and did you mean to say million stab?

No stinger I want to fucking impale and then throw them back.

[Tenlade]

Valve uses all of this to their advantage. It's free, easy publicity. All you've got to do is whisper into players' ears and make sure you never give all the information. Players love that ARG shit. Meanwhile over at Sega the bunch of amateurs running the show have decided that player interest should be suppressed and controlled.

they want the publicity from people watching their official live streams and trailers for the news.

[Maenara]

Sega's doing a Nexon.

[gigawuts]

they want the publicity from people watching their official live streams and trailers for the news.

Valve intentionally trickles out small pieces of information to keep players interested and active. Then they confirm or deny suspicions with an update trailer.

So yeah. Valve does all of that but stream. Given how niconico seems to cap how many people can watch a stream at once, Sega is making a pretty poor choice with that, too. Most of us wind up watching the stream when it's being re-broadcast by someone else.